MOSCOW — Russia will not support efforts to punish North Korea for sinking a South Korean warship until it is fully convinced Pyongyang was behind the incident, a foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday.

“We need to receive 100 percent proof of North Korea’s role in the sinking of the corvette,” the spokesman, Igor Lyakin-Frolov, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

“Our specialists are currently studying the materials of the investigation. We need to draw our own conclusions about what happened. Everything will depend on the situation and the body of evidence.”

The comments came a day after Russia announced that it was sending a team of experts to South Korea to assess the evidence about North Korea’s involvement in the sinking of the warship, which left 46 sailors dead.